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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017
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BACOLOD City – As the Philippine sugar industry works toward mechanization, it must address operational and manpower issues, Negros Occidental governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. stressed.
Local plantations may be improved to accommodate modern planting and harvesting equipment, Marañon said.
He claimed other sugar-producing and -exporting nations, including Australia and Thailand, are already mechanized.
But mechanization comes with a price, he warned: a single mechanical harvester, for instance, is worth an estimated P28 million.
“Our CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) beneficiaries could not even buy a carabao,” Marañon said.
The industry also lacks workers; the new generation of laborers in Negros Occidental left plantations and started working in cities, he said.
A former plantation worker with carpentry skills can easily earn around P350 to P450 a day, said Marañon.
“This is a big problem right now,” he stressed. “Our sugar industry is facing a reduced number of farm laborers.”/PN
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